Winter 2014

People tend to think that business schools focus solely on financial success, but effective business means being aware of all factors and aspects involved in business. For example, let’s imagine that you cut costs and raise profits by establishing a factory overseas, but meanwhile the by-products of your new factory are damaging the environment or population of the local area. Would we consider this business to be successful? Truly successful business takes into account factors such as the natural environment and the happiness of the people it affects.
Many issues in business and society are interrelated, which often results in friction. Instead of simply focusing on business, we need to create bridges with society and pursue and share research on how business can contribute. At the same time, the current issues of interest differ from country to country: for instance, while developed countries are now keen to tackle issues such as the environment, economic disparity, and population ageing, many developing countries prefer to focus on economic growth. Developing countries will also face such issues in the future, and we need to take action sooner rather than later or we risk limiting the possible solutions. With this in mind, a number of the world's leading business schools need to come together to pursue joint research on these issues and share the results with society--this is the founding principle of CoBS.

The topic, "Health and Healthcare," encompasses not only healthcare business, but also major health-related issues in society. As Japan tries to respond to the needs of a rapidly ageing population, we are seeing progress in healthcare provisions and medical and nursing care insurance, but at the same time many problems--such as discrepancies in access to adequate health care and a shortage of medical professionals--are coming to the surface. Medical institutions, companies, government, and universities that train medical professionals all need to come together to contribute ideas and create solutions.
Another key issue to address is the increased need for companies and organizations to provide adequate mental care for employees in the context of today’s high stress society. At the forum, we will emphasize the fact that it is unacceptable to neglect employees' health due to the costs, whatever the stage of development of a society, and also to discuss how management attitudes can affect solutions to these problems. We will also be focusing on innovative technology, including IT, and how its use in dealing with healthcare-related issues.
The aim of the forum is to introduce firsthand the strategies employed by Japan, including the way in which Japanese society has tackled such issues and the ways in which Japanese business have dealt with the growing responsibility of companies to provide healthcare. We are hosting this forum because there are a number of faculty members at KBS researching healthcare-related issues, and we felt we had something to share.

One of the visions we have for the future of the council is to make the forums an opportunity to share information with international society, similar to the World Economic Forum’s Davos meeting but without the political implications. Essentially we aim to consider solutions to global issues in business and society with theory and practice as a backbone and academic research as a base. By increasing the profile of CoBS, we can position the alliance as a platform for the six member schools to pursue joint research on issues that are proposed to us. For university researchers, it is a huge challenge to be asked to devise solutions to very real issues that transcend national borders, but business schools need to be prepared to respond to such challenges. I believe that my role as dean is to guide the direction of research so that we cooperate with research that provides solutions to the needs of society.